Unusual result when merging two transparent images in php - php

Question

Im wondering if I'm doing something wrong, or if this is as good a result as im going to get. Both PNGs on the left are 95x111. The image of the robot has a 5px or so padding of transparent pixels around it, but it seems to be causing problems when they merge?
$avatar = imagecreatefrompng("../guy.png");
$borderImg = imagecreatefrompng("../frame.png");
imagealphablending( $borderImg, false );
imagesavealpha( $borderImg, true );
imagecopyresampled($avatar,$borderImg, 0, 0, 0, 0, 95, 111,95, 111);
imagepng($avatar, $newfilenameBig);
Ive tried every combo of imagealphablending and imagesavealpha I can think of. When I set $avatar to imagesavealpa= true, then it doesnt even show the image as all, just the frame. Doesn't that seem strange?
Is this as far as i'm gonna get using PHP GD?
UPDATE: The desired result can be achieved when both images are created manually in PS using 24 bit mode. Is there a way to do this using imagecopy or similar?

Answer 1

Try the following code its working fine.
$width = 95;
$height = 111;
$base_image = imagecreatefrompng("../guy.png");
$top_image = imagecreatefrompng("../frame.png");
imagesavealpha($top_image, false);
imagealphablending($top_image, false);
imagecopy($base_image, $top_image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $width, $height);
imagepng($base_image, "merged.png");